STEM Literacy Instructor

The Young People's Project (YPP) is on a mission to change the landscape of who participates in the learning and teaching of STEM education in Boston, Cambridge and Somerville Massachusetts. YPP is committed to working with populations of students who have historically been on the bottom, especially in STEM. YPP understands that part of the solution to the problem of improving STEM education access and outcomes for populations of students who are being left behind lies within the students themselves, who we view as valuable assets. YPP has over 20 years of experience engaging and employing young people to work out of school to learn math well enough to teach, lead, and organize math literacy for their younger peers.

Relevance of the Position:

The purpose of a STEM Literacy Instructor is to guide and mentor a team of High School Math Literacy Workers (MLWs) through ongoing support, math and CS workshops, planning, and debrief sessions that will help them in their personal and professional development as learners, teachers, leaders, and organizers.

This work is at the frontier of STEM education in the country in that, by tapping into the energy of young people and the inherent influence they possess over one another, it seeks to provide a meaningful approach to the need in the country for quality math and computer science (CS) instruction for all children and particularly bottom quartile children.

If you are interested in STEM, particularly Computer Science, and are looking for ways to make a difference in your community, then this may be the role for you. We expect the STEM Literacy Instructor to grow and develop so that they will:

1. Help to build a safe, inviting, challenging, respectful and engaging learning environment and culture in the classroom;
2. Build meaningful professional relationships with the students, teacher, and YPP staff;
3. Help students develop the thinking, communication, problem-solving, management, inquiry, team-building, and interpersonal skills they will need to become successful in school and in life;
4. Become leaders in the classroom by helping to teach the material and manage a classroom.

In addition, STEM Literacy Instructors will occasionally provide support for special projects and will work with the local YPP Site Director to document and assess the quality of the program implementation.

Major Responsibilities:

Candidates with many of the following skills and attributes will do well in this role:

• Ability to learn from, teach and co-lead a classroom of 20 in STEM related content
• Comfortable with coding, research and development
• To understand that the way you might solve a problem might not be the best solution
• To believe, trust, and act on the suggestions of your students
• Strong presentation/communication of curriculum measured by observation
• Demonstrates Patience and Professionalism
• Shows interest in the lives and well being of all students
• Excellent interpersonal, communication, problem solving, multi-tasking, and leadership skills, and the ability to independently accomplish responsibilities as a member of multidisciplinary team
• Open to all opinions, varying views and questions
• Understand the institutional obstacles and barriers facing the students in the schools and communities you will work
• Understand and be able to articulate YPP Mission, History, and Purpose of Math Literacy work
• Ensuring Students are learning and mastering the materials
• Meeting with other staff to coordinate the flow of the day, lesson plan, turn in lesson plans on time to get feedback and make adjustments before any outreach
• Documenting where students need help and which skills need work
• Have continued and timely communication with other instructors and Coordinator
• Take notes during the session so you can add it to skills needed to work on with MLWs
• Conduct and document one-on-ones and make that information available to Director
• Foster an effective relationship with MLWs
• Ensure that attendance and other data collection is tracked and documented constantly and regularly

Basic Qualifications

• Between age 19-27 or enrolled at a Boston area college/university
• Experience in Python or other Object-Oriented Programming languages
• Comfortable with giving presentations
• Comfortable with instructing in urban schools
• Openness to learning a "New Way to Teach"
• Loves to design, act and revise